Isn't that a marvelous title? I have waited half a lifetime for an excuse to invent that title. Ever since I saw the documentary film The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar.

The latest incarnation of that title to inflict a rash of envy upon me is the TV series Lark Rise to Candleford. Haven't watched a single episode yet, I am so green with jealousy.

So, enjoy the title of this post. And read on, for you won't be disappointed.

In a single day I traveled from the snow-haunted woods of the world's second largest boreal forest to the shore of the world's largest and still unfrozen freshwater sea, and back again. Wow wow wow. I shall never forget it.

I was driving my faithful '97 Nissan Patfinder. Yes, faithful. I got the gas line break and the leak in the gas tank taken care of, and I would stake my life on that truck now. Oftentimes I have.

I started at daybreak yesterday, after a centimetre of fresh snow had fallen overnight, adding to the two centimetres that had fallen a day or two before. The Goldfield Road runs due south to the North Shore of Lake Superior, linking Hwys. 11 & 17, the two – the only two – cross-Canada road links through the boreal region.

The vehicle tracks in the freshly fallen snow told me I was not alone – that if my faithful truck broke down, I would be found within the next day or two. Twenty minutes later, I was following only two tracks, the others having turned off. Another twenty minutes, and I was following a single track. Another forty minutes, and I was alone, breaking trail. It started to snow. Steadily.

I saw it up ahead, about three-quarters of a kilometre away on a straight stretch. It was travelling on the northbound side of the Goldfield. I figured at first it was human . . . [It turned out] I was looking at the largest black wolf I have ever seen . . .

ORIGINAL POST 18 November 2011 (first of 3 chapters)Read the full post with colour photos on E.J. Lavoie's Blog >http://bit.ly/2feBvga

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E.J. Lavoie contributes a weekly column to Greenstone's Coffee Talk and the Nipigon-Red Rock Gazette. The column can be read in its entirety on his blog, complete with images. Just click the link at the end of each post.